


darling, hold my hand

by orphan_account



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Banter, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Gloves, Humor, Kissing, Letters, Long-Distance Relationship, Love Letters, Minor Leta Lestrange/Theseus Scamander, Minor Queenie Goldstein/Jacob Kowalski, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Post-Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-12 04:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12951273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Newt leaves a glove in Tina's apartment.  It's single-handedly the best thing he's ever done, pun intended.





	darling, hold my hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Waistcoat35](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waistcoat35/gifts).



> I don't actually recall if Newt wore gloves in the film, but let's just ignore that little oversight, shall we? <3

Tina found it on the floor the day after he’d gone.  

A lone glove laying there beneath the bed where he hadn’t slept that night. It must have landed there when he and Jacob snuck out the window.  

It looked hand-knit, but it was clumsy and uneven.  Rather like the scarf he wound around his neck.  They were both  made of faded black yarn with yellow trim. If she had to venture a guess, she’d say that Newt Scamander made it himself.  

She found it upon her return from seeing him off. She ventured into the room to begin cleaning it, spotting the forgotten article on the barren floor beneath the bed.  It made her heart ache a little when she ran her fingers over the glove’s surprisingly soft surface.  She even went so far as to slip her hand inside, marveling at how much longer his fingers were than hers.  

She stopped short of bringing it up to her nose, but she did tuck it into her pocket as she went about tidying up the small room.  

She pulled out her wand and made the bed, undoing the spell that had transfigured her desk into a second bed for Jacob.  Her heart ached a second time.  Deeper.  

She glanced at the open door, knowing that her sister was sitting in her own room, likely weeping on the bed.  

Things were such a mess right now.  A bigger mess than a few cleaning spells could fix.  

She was unemployed.

Queenie was heartbroken.  

Jacob had forgotten.  

Newt was  _ gone _ .  

Percival was… 

Tina swallowed thickly when she thought of her friend.  She had no idea where he was, or  _ how _ he was.  President Picquery hadn’t released a statement yet about the MACUSA breach.  About how Grindelwald had slipped in under their noses.  About that poor, poor boy.  Credence.  

About the still-lost little girl.  Modesty.  

_ Mess _ suddenly didn’t seem like the right word.  But it was the only one coming to mind.  

She sat down on her bed, wincing a little as the mattress squeaked in protest.  She reached down into her pocket to slide her fingers over Newt’s glove.  She wasn’t the type to wallow, but so much had happened,, and it brought her at least  _ some _ comfort in light of it all.  

Even though it seemed as if she and Queenie were alone, there was this small piece of tangible proof that they weren’t.  

* * *

 

Newt noticed the glove was missing when he arrived back in London.  He looked all over his little shed for it, coming up with nothing. 

He reasoned that he’d likely left it in the Goldsteins’ apartment.  Seeing as he had no clue as to when he’d be returning, he supposed he could write Tina and ask her to send it back to him.  Except it seemed a frivolous request.  Silly, in light of all the other possible things he could ask her.  

Also, what if she’d found it and tossed it?  What if it wasn’t there and she looked futilely for it, only for him to discover it stuffed in the pocket of his coat or some such?  Wouldn’t  _ that _ be embarrassing.

No.  it didn’t seem prudent to ask Tina about something as trivial as a glove.  

He could always make a new one.  

He placed the lone mate in a drawer and pulled out his wand, muttering the necessary incantations and watching as the long-dormant knitting needles began to click, a ball of black yarn moving around between them as the first few stitches were cast.  

He left out the yellow trim, deciding a new pair was better than just replacing the one.  

His others were dreadfully faded anyway.  It was time for something new.  

He looked around his small flat, the only sound was the crackle of the fire and the clicking of the needles.  He felt keenly  _ alone _ .  

Pickett chirped in his pocket, as if reading his mind and voicing his errant response.  

Frank was gone.  Newt tried to console himself with the thought that he simply missed his Thunderbird.  

_ Tina was a thunderbird at Ilvermorny… _

He sniffed out a laugh and held his hand up for Pickett to climb upon.  He’d only just met Tina, he didn’t miss her.  

The pang in his chest told him differently, however.  Perhaps it  _ was _ a thunderbird he missed. 

A thunderbird with a sharp tongue and a penchant for kosher beef hot dogs.  

And no, he wasn’t thinking of Frank anymore.  

* * *

 

Newt’s first letter came earlier than she’d originally expected it.  

A mere two weeks following his exit from America, she found it on her writing desk one afternoon.  

“I find myself thinking about you more and more, Ms. Goldstein.  I wonder if you’d tolerate my breaking a promise and returning before I finish my book?”  

Her heart beat rapidly in her chest as she read and reread the words, trying to make sense of them and making absolutely sure she was pulling the right meaning from them.  

His glove lay on her desk, having found its way out of the drawer where she’d begun keeping it when MACUSA called her back to work.  

She was back in the Auror Department.  Not as a full-Auror, but instead as a trainee once more.  

She supposed she should be thankful, but all she’d felt lately was tired.  

Tired of Aurors less trained than she, deigning to tell her how to do a job that she’d been born to do.  Tired of doing all the drudge work she’d done years before all over again.  And all because MACUSA had made a mistake. Well.  She’d made her fair share of them too, she supposed.  

But she still stood by what she’d done to help that boy.  

They were more concerned with hiding from the No-Maj than they were with actual safety.  

She took a deep breath and glanced down at Newt’s letter again.  “ _ I wonder if you’d tolerate my breaking a promise and returning before I finish my book?” _

There was no tolerance involved, she couldn’t write her answer fast enough.  

“Tolerate?  Newt, I would beg you to visit sooner, if it wouldn’t look too desperate on my part!  So yes, to answer your question.  I’d tolerate a visit from you whenever you could swing it!  P.S.  Did you know you left your glove here?  I oughta charge you rent for its room and board. You’d have no idea how much a lone glove eats.”

She hoped he enjoyed her joke.   

* * *

 

As it turned out, he wasn’t able to “swing it” for quite a while.  

The ministry couldn’t be without him for a good long while after his return.  Not even for a week.  

It seemed every time he finished with one problem, a new one fell screeching onto his lap.  Sometimes literally.

And then there was the small issue with his brother’s wedding.  

Not that Newt had to clear his schedule to attend, mind.  In fact, he hadn’t even been informed of it, he had to read about it in the Prophet and endure the looks from all of his coworkers.  The ones who knew his past and the ones who’d found out through gossip.

It might have bothered him a year ago.  If he’d found out Theseus was pursuing Leta Lestrange, he might have had something to say about it.  

But now, it just seemed…  _ annoying _ somehow.  

He was annoyed with everyone for assuming he’d begrudge them their happiness.  He was annoyed with his brother for not telling him.  He was even a touch annoyed with his mother.  Even though she hadn’t spoken with him for years, he couldn’t believe that she’d let something as important as his only brother’s nuptials come and go without so much as an owl.

It was likely for the best that he was too busy to travel.  If he’d gone after his brother’s wedding, it would only have fanned the flames.  

As it was, he arrived to work on time, left work on time, and sent letter after letter to Tina in between.  

He’d come to look forward to receiving the post.  And it was solely due to Tina’s tongue-in-cheek updates on his lost glove’s “well-being”.  

In her last letter, she’d told him all about how she’d taken his glove to the Statue of Liberty.  And then to a deli for lunch.  

There was an update about Jacob’s bakery and Queenie’s goings-on.  

Newt was starting to sense a trend… or perhaps it was simply one of Tina’s character traits:  She didn’t enjoy talking about herself.  Even though, she inadvertently did it when she talked about her silly travels with his glove.  Which was the whole reason he encouraged her on that endeavor anyway.  That, and she was quite humourous if she put her mind to it.

He found a letter waiting for him when he arrived home that day.  He tore it open, skimming the first line and having to go back and reread it.  And then check the date on his calendar, because it just  _ couldn't _ be right.   

“It’s been a year since we met, Mr. Scamander…” her letter began.  

Had it really been an entire year?  

The calendar was flipped to December, so it seemed rightly so.  

“Your glove was quite lonely for you at first, but I think our continued correspondence has helped.”

The rest of the letter went on in much the same way.  She informed him that his glove had watched on as Queenie gave her a much needed haircut.  And that her work was just as mundane as ever, but she hoped the new calendar year would bring promise.

He pulled out his quill, deciding to pen his reply right then.  

“My glove won’t have to put up with being lonely for much longer, Tina.  I believe I have some vacation time accrued once more and I will be able to make a short visit to New York.”  

The rest of his letter was rather hurried, he had some packing to do.  

* * *

 

He arrived at two in the afternoon on a Monday.

And Tina had been there for hours already.  

He approached her slowly, setting his case down on the ground and slowly straightening to his full height.  “Well… I’ve returned.  Do you have my glove, Tina?”  

A slow smirk spread across her lips before she replied.  “What would you say if I told you I’d thrown it out?”  

He laughed.  “I honestly wouldn’t care, it was a shoddy pretense for a visit anyway. It’s you I wanted to see… dunno if you could pull that from my letters or not… ” He smiled then, a half-smirk of a thing that she loved immediately.  

“I could pull something from them,” she replied.  “I’m happy it was the right something.”

She slipped her hand into her pocket, withdrawing the glove. Newt reached out, taking it from her for a moment and then pressing it back into her hand.  “I think… if I can’t be with you all the time, I’d rather if my glove was.  You take rather good care of it, at any rate.”  

She tightened her hold on the glove and pulled it closer, and him with it.  

His face was very close to hers when she answered.  “I wish I could keep _you_ in my pocket, Newt Scamander.”  

He closed the distance between them, pressing his lips softly to hers and making her heart flutter, her stomach swoop as he slowly tilted his head to better seal his mouth over hers.  He broke off the kiss, running his tongue over his lips briefly. “I’d be very happy there, I’d wager.”   

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays! <3


End file.
